• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Social Velocity

Creating more strategic, financially savvy, and confident nonprofit leaders and organizations.

  • Consulting
    • Financial Model Assessment
    • Executive Coaching
    • Strategic Planning
  • Book
  • Clients
  • Speaking
  • Blog
  • About
    • Nell Edgington’s Bio
    • Media
  • Connect
  • Tools
Home » Capacity Building » A Philanthropic Experiment in Collaboration and Capacity Building

August 28, 2009 By Nell Edgington 2 Comments

A Philanthropic Experiment in Collaboration and Capacity Building

I mentioned earlier that a group of Austin philanthropists is working on a collaboration around building the capacity of local arts education organizations.  I now have more information on the project, and as an example of philanthropic collaboration and capacity building it’s pretty interesting.  The project, called Mind Pop, is a $225,000+ collaboration among Still Water Foundation, Webber Family Foundation, Applied Materials, Tapestry Foundation, the Education Foundation of America and additional funders who they are still working to secure. The leaders of Mind POP hope to improve the unequal access Austin students have to high quality arts education and the lack of capacity and collaboration among arts education organizations in town.

Their goals for the project are to:

  • Establish a baseline for measuring improvements in access and quality
  • Pinpoint inequities in the community to design targeted solutions
  • Strengthen relationships between key community partners
  • Fund four pilot projects designed by the key partners to address systemic change
  • Improve the capacities of 25-40 arts education orgs and provide seed funding to strengthen their programs
  • Act collaboratively, laying a foundation for ongoing coordination and potential  national funding going forward

The project has three phases over the next year.  Phase One is an analysis to understand gaps in resources in the current arts education landscape.  Phase Two is a series of professional development sessions for arts education organization leaders to address the four most critical barriers to capacity that they see. These two phases will happen concurrently. Then, Phase Three will be the distribution of $150,000 in grants to the arts organizations that participated in the capacity building sessions. This money is comprised of four systemic change grants at $25,000 each and 40 mini-grants at $1,000-2,500 for organizational change projects.

The details, partnerships and funders are still being worked out, so this is all subject to change, but I imagine the basic overall design of the project will stay the same.

Although the scope and dollar amount of the collaboration and capacity building project is relatively small, it is impressive for two reasons.  First of all, I like to see philanthropists pooling resources for greater leverage.  Particularly in Austin, where our foundation assets are small compared to the foundation assets of other cities, collaboration is crucial to achieve broader and deeper social impact.  So the fact that these family and corporate foundations are creating a pooled fund of money means a greater amount of capital working for the same goal, which hopefully means a greater chance that the goals are realized.  And secondly, this project is interesting because it seeks to understand AND remedy problems of capacity within the nonprofit sector.  I have talked at length about the need for greater capital to fund organization building in the sector.  Philanthropists are often hesitant to see their money go anywhere other than direct program services.  But when philanthropists like those in Mind POP recognize how important capacity and organization building is to addressing the root cause of social problems (like unequal access to arts education) they are moving the sector forward.  They are recognizing and demonstrating to their colleagues that capacity can and should be supported.

It will be interesting to see how this project progresses and the outcomes it achieves.  I’ll keep you posted.


Related Posts

  • Nonprofit Capacity Building Works: An Interview with Kathy Reich
  • Building Better Nonprofits: A Podcast
  • Nonprofit Leaders Have the Power to Create Capacity Funding

Filed Under: Capacity Building, Nonprofits, Philanthropy Tagged With: Applied Materials, Austin, Capacity Building, Education Foundation of America, Mind POP, philanthopists, Still Water Foundation, Tapestry Foundation, Webber Family Foundation

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Free Training

Consulting Services

If you want your nonprofit or foundation to do and be more, Nell can help you get there

Ready to Learn More About Working with Nell?

Book a Discovery Call

Featured Blog Post Topics

  • Social Changemaker Interviews

  • Smart Strategic Planning

  • Effective Philanthropy

  • Networks for Social Change

  • The New Nonprofit Leader

  • A Groundbreaking Board

  • Reinventing the Nonprofit Sector

  • From Fundraising to Financing

Recent Posts

You Can Turn Any Challenge into Opportunity

A Social Change Army is Amassing

It’s Not All Up to You

To Save the World, Save Yourself

Imagine the World You Want to See

Categories

  • Abundance
  • Advocacy
  • Board of Directors
  • Capacity Building
  • Capacity Capital
  • Financing
  • Fundraising
  • Individual Donors
  • Leadership
  • Marketing
  • Networks
  • Nonprofits
  • Philanthropy
  • Roadblocks
  • Social Change
  • Social Movements
  • Strategy
  • Consulting
  • Book
  • Clients
  • Speaking
  • Blog
  • About
  • Connect
  • Tools

© 2022 Social Velocity | Privacy Policy | [email protected] | Tel: 512-694-7235